[UK poll] If you own FSD and Tesla offered the option to downgrade

[MrBadger]

Poll for UK FSD owners only.

If you 'own' FSD and Tesla offered the option to downgrade to AP or EAP (enhanced autopilot), would you?

Poll does not differentiate on how much refund may be due based upon benefit already used. ie, its a full refund based upon what you originally paid. If you originally paid less than current retail, you only get back what you originally paid.

For this poll, assume that any refund would be what you paid and if downgrading to EAP, the refund is based upon what you paid for FSD less £3400 EAP cost.

For the subscription model, assume a monthly cost of £100/month and a one off setup cost of £1000 (or £2500 if your vehicle requires a HW3/FSD upgrade).

If in the future you decide to buy FSD again, you will pay at the then prevailing upgrade cost. This may result in paying more than you originally paid.

 

[Durzel]

The money is gone as far as I’m concerned. I paid £5800, so not the current price, and whilst the £2400 windfall would be a nice to wake up to one morning, I’d rather carry on having the car do everything it is capable of doing, and (hopefully) being one of the first to get the latest new self driving stuff.

I’m a bit weird like that though. I’m one of those people who would be able to rationalise paying an extra £13k over the LR, because “I just want the P”.

 

[Hurricane]

I would definitely go for a refund. What have I got for my £5800? Summon doesn’t work and is severely limited in this country anyway. Automatic lane changes are so erratic and so painfully slow as to be completely useless. Autopark is similarly unreliable. I don’t even use basic autopilot very often because of the number of downright dangerous incidences of phantom braking.

And Tesla break their promises. When I ordered my M3 with FSD in June 2019 it said “Coming later this year - automatic driving on city streets”. That of course was complete bollocks. Now the website just says this feature is “upcoming”, but they very sensibly haven’t given a timeframe as they obviously haven’t got a clue.

FSD is only worthwhile because of its promise of extra features in the future. Problem is the future never arrives. And I for one am convinced that Tesla won’t achieve “full self driving” in this country for many years.

 

[MrBadger]

I'm undecided.

When I ordered the car, the aim was to keep it 10+ years, but I'm not so sure on that now. So slow rollout of true FSD would have been neither here nor there.

But goals seemed to have moved, seemingly concentrating on City Streets rather than fixing existing issues and creating more. For UK, it seems at time that things are going backwards. Now I am thinking that the car may not be a keeper - the only car I have owned that I have ever thought that.

So my view on FSD has changed somewhat. I think it would probably be a keeper if FSD was transferrable, but EM has pretty much ruled that out and I would have to think long and hard if any replacement was another Tesla. Much as I think EAP is the current sweet spot, its still rough enough at the edges for SWMBO not to want to try it so is of more limited use than it perhaps could be. So if shown the colour of the money, I would probably take the full refund and keep my options open in the future, unless EAP showed signs of improvement somewhat.

 

[Yev000]

Bit of a weird hypothetical. They will never offer FSD refunds. So why do you need to decide if you'd take one?

There is a bit of momevent on the regulations, so it might become usefull soon.

Why do you think the car is "not a keeper"? Just the AP/FSD stuff?

 

[Dilly]

I bought FSD with there being some imminent action to bring it closer to fruition. The beta videos give a good impression of what’s possible.
I just wonder what Elon is playing at when new updates bring new games and improved farting but fall well short of making sensible ‘repairs’ to the things that don’t work properly. At my age, I thought it would probably be my last car. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t want a car that is running in perpetual beta. I want a car that I can trust.

 

[Drew57]

I don't own FSD but have used it extensively on my Daughters Model X.

I do like using it on a long motorway drive & it is useful but being retired we do relatively few of these. Unless phantom braking is completely eradicated and lane change/exit on navigate work every time then it remains a bit too hit and miss for now.

Even when FSD on other road types eventually approaches UK reliability I actually enjoy driving the car too much to fully trust it in those situations. After all, what's the point of owning a high performance vehicle but as a passenger to a slower, more cautious and rather erratic driving bot? If I wanted that, I'd ask my 91y old father to chauffeur me.

Having said that, the Model 3 was always going to be an interim car for us. My wife much prefers the Model Y so we may try a subscription one day especially as she is already starting to draw parallels between my driving and that of my father.

 

[Peteski]

I have FSD on a free 3 month trial (end of year sales bonus) and don’t think it’s worth it. I’m actually looking forward to having only standard AP so I don’t have to get frustrated about erratic auto-lane changes ever again! For the same reason I also wish I could downgrade EAP to AP in our MX.

I haven’t voted because I don’t technically own FSD, thank goodness!

 

[Yev000]

I’m actually looking forward to having only standard AP so I don’t have to get frustrated about erratic auto-lane changes ever again

You know you can turn it off, right?

 

[AnthonyLR]

I bought FSD based on future developments. When I watch the FSD 8.1 Beta videos I can see the progress Tesla is making with its neural net video processing all cameras simultaneously. So as things stand FSD is pretty useless to me, but for me the car is a keeper and Tesla will be first to have FSD working by a long margin. I rarely change my cars (once a decade.) This is the only car I have owned that updates so I am hopeful it will stay relevant throughout that decade and then go out and work for me on the Robotaxi fleet.

Fun fact: when I bought the car in March 2020 I instantly became a Tesla superfan and switched my existing share investments into Tesla. I hope to hold these shares for at least as long as I own a Tesla. The share price growth has made a big dent in my cost of ownership and makes me smile every time I look at my car.

 

[Peteski]

You know you can turn it off, right?

I might just do that, thanks for reminding me

 

[Type2]

Tesla will be first to have FSD working by a long margin.

I’d be interested to know what your reasoning is for this. I think we can quite definitely discount any predictions from the Musk because he has been so disastrously wrong in the past. There is no definitive opinion on whether Tesla will be able to deliver full autonomy with its present hardware, and there has been no detailed evaluation of the beta software to see if it is fit for purpose. What is achievable in the States does not necessarily translate to this country. Personally I think full autonomy in this country is many, many years away.

There also seems to be a feeling among some people that Tesla is the only company that is capable of any sort of innovation. In fact Navigant Research puts Tesla behind Waymo, Qualcomm, Intel-Mobile Eye and NVIDIA in the development of autonomous driving systems. I have no way of judging how reliable their research is, and this report is now eleven months old. But it’s clearly fair to say that Tesla is not the only player in the game.

 

[Peteski]

I'm undecided.
But goals seemed to have moved, seemingly concentrating on City Streets rather than fixing existing issues and creating more.

Yeah, would be much better if they concentrated on making AP work flawlessly on motorways and dual carriageways. It would be a more realistic goal and make the system very desirable for long monotonous journeys. I don't even want FSD on most other roads, city or rural.

 

[Yev000]

Yeah, would be much better if they concentrated on making AP work flawlessly on motorways and dual carriageways.

Thats exclusively down to the regulators.

 

[Yev000]

I’d be interested to know what your reasoning is for this. I think we can quite definitely discount any predictions from the Musk because he has been so disastrously wrong in the past. There is no definitive opinion on whether Tesla will be able to deliver full autonomy with its present hardware, and there has been no detailed evaluation of the beta software to see if it is fit for purpose. What is achievable in the States does not necessarily translate to this country. Personally I think full autonomy in this country is many, many years away.

There also seems to be a feeling among some people that Tesla is the only company that is capable of any sort of innovation. In fact Navigant Research puts Tesla behind Waymo, Qualcomm, Intel-Mobile Eye and NVIDIA in the development of autonomous driving systems. I have no way of judging how reliable their research is, and this report is now eleven months old. But it’s clearly fair to say that Tesla is not the only player in the game.

Not the guy you replied to, but the reasoning is fairly simple;

1. If you take restrictive regulations aside Tesla has demonstrated in US using FSD beta that full autonoly is possible in non-geofenced areas using vision only. If you disagree with this statement, you will disagree with anything I say so...

2. No other company has demonstrated equivalent yet.

Its not so much about Elon's predictions as it is about Youtube videos made by unaffiliated parties. Your argument boils down to "I don't belive Elon's promices and other companies can be innovative". Sure, give me proof and lets compare videos of FSD beta VS other companies.

 

[AnthonyLR]

I’d be interested to know what your reasoning is for this. I think we can quite definitely discount any predictions from the Musk because he has been so disastrously wrong in the past. There is no definitive opinion on whether Tesla will be able to deliver full autonomy with its present hardware, and there has been no detailed evaluation of the beta software to see if it is fit for purpose. What is achievable in the States does not necessarily translate to this country. Personally I think full autonomy in this country is many, many years away.

There also seems to be a feeling among some people that Tesla is the only company that is capable of any sort of innovation. In fact Navigant Research puts Tesla behind Waymo, Qualcomm, Intel-Mobile Eye and NVIDIA in the development of autonomous driving systems. I have no way of judging how reliable their research is, and this report is now eleven months old. But it’s clearly fair to say that Tesla is not the only player in the game.

When has Elon been "disastrously wrong" in the past? He has definitely been optimistic with timescales (he would rather be wrong as an optimist than right as a pessimist) so people joke about "Elon time." But the Model Y was early.

I watched a video from a futurologist called Tony Seba about clean and autonomous transport on YouTube a couple of days ago:

The central argument relates to technological change happening on an S-curve and always being much quicker than people imagine. He actually says that saying technological revolution is "many, many years away" is a standard error we humans make. We make it every time there is a tech revolution (horses to cars, mobile phones, Blackberry to iPhone...)

I see the FSD 8.1 beta videos on YouTube and note how quickly the system is iterating. I note that Tesla is training its Neural Net to take the video feeds from all 8 of its cameras simultaneously, combine it with time, and see the world around it more clearly. I note that Tesla has billions of real world driving miles to train its Neural network on (no other company comes close). And I note Elon is the man who lands rockets autonomously on autonomous drone ships in the ocean so he can re-use them when everyone said it was impossible. He also built an electric car company when no one said it could be done.

So when that guy tells me he thinks they can do it soon (even though he has said that in the past) my default position is to believe him. He isn't writing the code, he is supervising the work of Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) and his small team and saying what an honour it is to work with them: he spends a lot of time with them.

You asked for my reasoning - there it is. I'm in my fifties, I've seen a fair bit of change in my lifetime (I remember thinking a Betamax VCR was from Star Trek) and it all seems like magic to me.

I used to run a large film processing company and when digital cameras first appeared in around 2000 my whole industry thought it would take twenty years for them to gain mass market. We were all toast (Kodak included) in around ten years. That damn S-curve again!

There are some very clever people on this autonomous path - I just believe Tesla is ahead of them all.

 

[Durzel]

I've lost money in the past on decisions that weren't objectively bad, but just ill timed, so I'm not losing any sleep over paying for FSD. It is mildly irritating that it is not as advanced as it is in the States, but that's not exactly Tesla's fault. I am cautiously optimistic that we will see a version of FSD beta in Europe some time this year, and it will be people with FSD that get that first.

I would be pretty cheesed off if Tesla announced that it was going to be available and I didn't have it, but as said everyone's attitude with this sort of thing is different. I wanted the car to be able to do everything it was possible for it to do, because that's sortof what it's all about. But at the same time I couldn't in good conscience recommend FSD to someone who was on the fence about it. You're buying into a development cycle as much as a practical, direct benefit.

 

[JupiterMan]

I can afford it, I'll keep it... I'm enjoying the journey... frustrating that regulators slow us down, but fascinating for me all the same.

I'm on a lease so will buy it again in 2.5 years time!

 

[AnthonyLR]

I can afford it, I'll keep it... I'm enjoying the journey... frustrating that regulators slow us down, but fascinating for me all the same.

I'm on a lease so will buy it again in 2.5 years time!

You will probably subscribe!

 

[Peteski]

When has Elon been "disastrously wrong" in the past? He has definitely been optimistic with timescales (he would rather be wrong as an optimist than right as a pessimist) so people joke about "Elon time." But the Model Y was early.

I watched a video from a futurologist called Tony Seba about clean and autonomous transport on YouTube a couple of days ago:

The central argument relates to technological change happening on an S-curve and always being much quicker than people imagine. He actually says that saying technological revolution is "many, many years away" is a standard error we humans make. We make it every time there is a tech revolution (horses to cars, mobile phones, Blackberry to iPhone...)

I see the FSD 8.1 beta videos on YouTube and note how quickly the system is iterating. I note that Tesla is training its Neural Net to take the video feeds from all 8 of its cameras simultaneously, combine it with time, and see the world around it more clearly. I note that Tesla has billions of real world driving miles to train its Neural network on (no other company comes close). And I note Elon is the man who lands rockets autonomously on autonomous drone ships in the ocean so he can re-use them when everyone said it was impossible. He also built an electric car company when no one said it could be done.

So when that guy tells me he thinks they can do it soon (even though he has said that in the past) my default position is to believe him. He isn't writing the code, he is supervising the work of Andrej Karpathy (@karpathy) and his small team and saying what an honour it is to work with them: he spends a lot of time with them.

You asked for my reasoning - there it is. I'm in my fifties, I've seen a fair bit of change in my lifetime (I remember thinking a Betamax VCR was from Star Trek) and it all seems like magic to me.

I used to run a large film processing company and when digital cameras first appeared in around 2000 my whole industry thought it would take twenty years for them to gain mass market. We were all toast (Kodak included) in around ten years. That damn S-curve again!

There are some very clever people on this autonomous path - I just believe Tesla is ahead of them all.

I remember watching Space 1999 as a kid back in the 70s. But space exploration never did quite match the expectations back then.

FSD on UK roads doesn’t exactly seem imminent to me either. Especially not alongside human drivers. In the 3 years I’ve experienced EAP/FSD, it has gone virtually nowhere.